Re: Maruti's AMT woes I've got a 2020 Celerio ZXI AMT. I've put in barely 2,500kms on the clocks in 5 months, and the AMT gearbox has had its fair share of advantages as well as a few minor niggles.
To start off with the good stuff, the AMT is a boon in the city. The compact dimensions of the car coupled with this gearbox is a real boon.
The shifts are well judged most of the time. On empty roads, you find that the gearbox does shift up to fourth gear, fifth needs a proper turn of speed to be selected 'automatically'. I always lift off the throttle to coax a shift, and I personally like the shift going through, especially when one is enthusiastic. However if you're driving an AMT after using a gearbox like a CVT or traditional torque converter, you will definitely find it cruder or simply more frustrating. My other car is a City CVT, so I can verify this. It is not a bad gearbox though, it feels snappy enough to be enthusiastic, and I love the feeling of using the stick in manual mode. Coupled with the 1-litre petrol engine which revs freely, Japanese engines for the win, it is definitely more exciting than a Kwid, one of the main reasons the latter was not considered.
My car hasn't felt any sort of juddering so far, even though these kilometres have been hard and fast. However, when one is parking the car, engaging reverse can take more than one try. This happens occasionally but even after you depress the brakes fully - you need to wait for the mechanical sound of reverse engaging and then the cluster showing 'R'.
The biggest irritation with the AMT is the failsafe system. If you may have observed, this kicks in when using manual mode, especially when your revs may be getting too high. The system can sometimes be intrusive, shifting up or down a gear when you need it the most. I took my car to a Team BHP meet held earlier this year, driving to Lonavala. In the ghats, I promptly switched to manual mode to hold onto lower gears. But the system did get puzzled quite a bit initially - shifting to a higher gear. Revving the engine later to build momentum is frankly frustrating and potentially risky too. In the city again, the AMT shifts to fourth gear too quickly, which again results in unnecessary downshifts, negating its purpose of getting the best fuel economy (going by the on-board consumption, I get between 13 to 16 kmpl in city conditions). You really have to alter your driving style a bit, keeping a low consistent speed without trying to touch the brakes much. Small breakers are often coasted through. At times I use the manual mode entirely, going up and down the box to reduce the AMT's indecisiveness.
While the brakes work quite well, I'm a bit concerned about their wear and tear, especially due to the additional amount of abuse which I felt was subjected to them using this gearbox. The brake pedal feel after heavy traffic jams can feel a bit inconsistent, but there's no effect on the effectiveness. I have similar concerns with the clutch wear too due to the gearbox, but I still remain optimistic.
Really feel Maruti should get an AMT 2.0, make it in-house, like Hyundai, and learn from these missteps. Even the current gearbox, let's be honest, does a fine job - but it has inconsistencies and you do feel that there is a whole lot of scope for improvement. That said, it is a fairly decent halfway-house between manuals and proper TC, CVT automatics. I wouldn't want to dissuade anyone from considering it if you're looking to buy one of these.
PS: Going off topic, what's with the spec and equipment levels of Maruti AMTs? I know this won't be the most relevant thread for that, but in my observation, the AMTs simply do not come with all the top-spec bells and whistles as their cheaper, manual counterparts. My ZXI AMT cost more than the top spec ZXI manual - yet it did not get the fog lamps (got them fitted from MGA), a driver seat height adjuster, or most importantly - alloy wheels! It felt infuriating on a level, to be short-changed for the equipment. The trim/spec level spread just feels illogical. Apologies for the rant, but this is 'my' first car and cannot help but get a bit attached to it. |